Common questions about Wuthering Heights When did Heathcliff embrace Catherine’s body? He didn't. The idea of Heathcliff digging up Catherine's body is one of the best known myths about Wuthering Heights. Sometimes, it is said, he just embraces her, sometimes he even dances with her lifeless corpse. But the reality is very different. The incidents with Catherine's body take place in chapters 16 ( near the end ) and 29 ( about halfway ). In chapter 16, Heathcliff visits her body in her room at Thrushcross Grange and places a lock of his hair in her locket (my italics). Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease; and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawing-room. Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and—a circumstance concealed from all but me—Heathcliff spent his nights, at least, outside, equally a stranger to repose.

I held no communication with him: still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could; and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu. He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly; too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed, I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face, and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread; which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together.

In chapter 29, after her funeral, we find this: He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile: 'I'll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again—it is hers yet!—he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up: not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too; I'll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to us he'll not know which is which!' and this: 'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered. 'Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort?

I expected such a transformation on raising the lid—but I'm better pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter—all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself 'I'll have her in my arms again!

If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills me ; and if she be motionless, it is sleep.” I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might—it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. 'If I can only get this off,” I muttered, 'I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!” and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb.

I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and led me home. So it is clear from these extracts that Heathcliff never actually removes her body from the coffin and, on the visit to the drawing room, there is no suggestion that he even moves her body: Indeed, I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face… The result then is that this is what happens to Catherine's body: Monday 20 March 1784. Catherine dies in the parlour at Thrushcross Grange (about two in the morning), aged about 18 years. Monday 20 March 1784. At sunrise, Edgar is found with his head on the pillow next to Catherine's. Tuesday 21 March 1784. Heathcliff enters the drawing room "a little after dark" (which would be about 1900). Catherine is in her coffin which is open.

Ellen opens the windows and, sometime during the night, Heathcliff enters and replaces Edgar's hair with his in her locket. Ellen entwines Edgar and Heathcliff's hair in the locket. Friday 24 March 1784. Catherine's funeral in a corner of the chapel churchyard. Hindley and Heathcliff do not attend. Friday 24 March 1784. In the evening, Heathcliff goes alone to the churchyard with the intention of digging down to Catherine's coffin and holding her in his arms. But, as he is trying to lever off the lid, he senses Catherine's spirit and stops. He refills the grave and leaves. August/September 1801. Edgar is buried next to Catherine. While the grave was being dug, Heathcliff persuades/pays the sexton to remove the earth from her coffin and he opens it. He replaces it to prevent decomposition and removes the side of her coffin (away from Edgar's position) and covers it up. April (probably) 1802. Heathcliff is buried next to Catherine.

Although not explicitly stated, the suggestion is that the side of his coffin and Catherine's were removed so that they lay together. Postscript Note: it is interesting to note that Catherine dies on a couch in the parlour, not in her bedroom. Could this have been the source of the legend that Emily died on the couch in the Parsonage? Is Heathcliff a murderer? From "Is Heathcliff a Murderer? : Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-century Literature" by John Sutherland (Oxford World's Classics — Oxford University Press). When he returns to Wuthering Heights after his mysterious three-year period of exile Heathcliff has become someone very cruel. He left an uncouth but essentially humane stable-lad. He returns a gentleman psychopath. His subsequent brutalities are graphically recorded. They are many and very unpleasant. He humiliates Edgar Linton who has married Cathy during his absence. 'I wish you joy of the milk-blooded coward', he tells Cathy in her husband's presence. The taunt is the more brutal since Edgar is clearly the weaker man and in no position to exact physical reparation. Heathcliff goes on to torment Edgar by hinting that he has cuckolded him.

Subsequently Heathcliff beats his wife Isabella, as he has gruesomely promised to do in earlier conversation with Cathy: 'You'd hear of odd things, if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face; the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two; they detestably resemble Linton's'. When Nelly sees Isabella, after she has fled from Heathcliff, she does indeed describe 'a white face scratched and bruised'. Isabella goes on to describe her husband's 'murderous violence' to Nelly in some detail. Heathcliff has shaken her till her teeth rattle. He has thrown a kitchen knife at her head which 'struck beneath my ear'; she has a wound which will probably scar her for life. Had she not run away, who knows how far he would have gone in his cold brutality towards her. In later life Heathcliff would certainly have beaten his son as savagely as he beat the boy's mother, were it not that he needs the degenerate brat whole and unmarked for his long-term scheme of revenge against Thrushcross Grange.

He has no compunction about punching young Catherine. Young Heathcliff tells Nelly about his father's violent reaction on learning that the girl has tried to keep for herself two miniatures of her dead parents: 'I said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing wouldn't let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked out—that frightens her—she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother's portrait; the other she attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained it. He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me; she refused, and he—he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.' 'And were you pleased to see her struck?' I asked: having my designs in encouraging his talk. 'I winked,' he answered: 'I wink to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard.' Or a woman, one may add. It is not just four-footed victims who feel the weight of Heathcliff's fist.

Heathcliff is capable of more cold-blooded and calculating cruelty. He abducts young Catherine and keeps her from her dying father's bedside, accelerating Edgar's death and ensuring that it shall be an extremely miserable one. He urges Hindley towards self-destruction by encouraging his fatal mania for drink and cards. On a casual level, Heathcliff is given to killing household pets (he strangles his wife's favourite dog by way of wedding present) and desecrates graves. Mr Heathcliff, we may assume, is not a nice man. And in a later age his violence and lawlessness would have earned him a prison sentence or at the very least a string of restraining orders and court injunctions. But does Heathcliff commit the cruellest crime of all, murder? To answer this question we must examine the suspicious circumstances of the death of Hindley Earnshaw, master of Wuthering Heights. 'The end of Earnshaw was what might have been expected,' Nelly recalls in her long narrative to Lockwood, 'it followed fast on his sister's, there was scarcely six months between them.

We, at the Grange, never got a very succinct account of his state preceding it.' Nelly learns of the death, after the event, from the local apothecary, Mr Kenneth. 'He died true to his character,' Kenneth cheerfully adds, 'drunk as a lord'. Hindley was just 27. Evidently Kenneth has witnessed, the death and signed the necessary certificate. Nelly's suspicions are immediately aroused. 'Had he fair play?' she ponders. The anxiety 'bothers' her and she makes a trip to Wuthering Heights to discover what she can of the truth of the case. Before going she learns from Earnshaw's lawyer (who also acts for Mr Linton, Nelly's employer) that the 'whole property [of Wuthering Heights] is mortgaged' to Heathcliff. At the Heights, Nelly meets Heathcliff who, rather shiftily, as we may think, gives his eyewitness account of Hindley's death: 'Correctly,' he remarked, 'that fool's body should he buried at the cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind.

I happened to leave him ten minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard him sporting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle: flaying and scalping would not have wakened him. I sent for Kenneth, and he came; but not till the beast had changed into carrion: he was both dead and cold, and stark; and so you'll allow it was useless making more stir about him!' By the last enigmatic remark, Heathcliff means that it would have been 'useless' calling in the coroner, on the grounds that the death was suspicious. Heathcliff's account is 'confirmed' to Nelly by Joseph, the misanthropic (but wholly reliable) old manservant at the Heights. Joseph, however, is by no means happy about his former master's last hours: 'I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t' doctor!

I sud ha' taen tent o' t' maister better nor him—and he warn't deead when I left, naught o' t' soart!' ['I would rather that Heathcliff had gone himself for the doctor! I should have taken care of the master better than him and he wasn't dead when I left, nothing of the sort!']. Joseph is invincibly honest. And one concurs in his 'muttered' doubts (he dare not voice them out loud, in case Heathcliff hears, and gives him the back of his hand). It is most improbable that a 27-year-old man, in otherwise robust health, should be able to 'drink himself to death' in a single night. Young men do, of course, kill themselves by excessive drinking, but usually by driving cars drunk, or by inhaling their own vomit while sleeping. It is clear that although he is 'snorting 'Hindley is breathing efficiently when he is left alone with Heathcliff. Did he show signs of being about to suffocate, it would be an easy thing for Heathcliff to lift him up and bang him on the back, thus clearing his throat.

And, as Joseph recalls, although dead drunk, Hindley did not appear to be dying. He was, however, insensible and incapable of resisting anyone stifling him with a cushion. Kenneth is a somewhat elusive figure, but it is likely that as a mere apothecary ('Mr' Kenneth) he would not have been able to conduct any expert medical examination of the body. It may even be that Heathcliff bribed him to sign the certificate and obviate any embarrassing coroner's inquest. It is nicely poised and every reader must make his or her own judgement. If Heathcliff did stifle Hindley (albeit that Hindley has earlier tried to shoot and stab Heathcliff) we have to see him as a sociopathic monster. If he watched the man die, and declined to prevent his death (by clearing Hindley's throat, for example) he is scarcely better. These plausible reconstructions of what happened at Wuthering Heights while Heathcliff and the incapable Hindley were alone together render absurd such rosy adaptations as the Samuel Goldwyn 1939 film.

If we believe that Heathcliff was simply an innocent bystander at Hindley's self-destruction, then we can credit the sympathetic reading of his character suggested by the exclamation Nelly overhears him make, in the intensity of his wretchedness: 'I have no pity! I have no pity! The [more the] worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething, and I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain'. When a baby savagely bites its teething ring, it is because it (the baby) is experiencing excruciating pain from the teeth tearing their way through its gums. So Heathcliff may be seen to inflict pain on others (hurling knives at his wife, taunting Edgar, striking young Catherine, lashing his horse) only because he feels greater inward pain himself. But one cannot so justify the furtive smothering, in cold blood, of someone whose death will mean considerable financial gain to the murderer. There are no clear answers to this puzzle. As Ian Jack has noted, 'Wuthering Heights is one of the most enigmatic of English novels'.

Whether or not Heathcliff is guilty of capital crime remains a fascinating but ultimately inscrutable enigma at the very heart of the narrative. For what it is worth, I believe he did kill Hindley, although for any unprejudiced jury it is likely that enough 'reasonable doubt' would remain to acquit him. Was Heathcliff Mr Earnshaw's son? The circumstances of Heathcliff's arrival at Wuthering Heights are certainly peculiar and this has led many people to speculate that there is more to the origins of the boy than Mr Earnshaw lets on. The idea of Mr Earnshaw walking for three days to Liverpool and back (when he had horses in the stable) seems unusual to the modern mind when we are so used to driving everywhere but maybe that was quite normal in those days. (And Emily certainly wouldn't have turned her nose up at a long walk.) But this journey has made people suspect that his visit to Liverpool (or indeed somewhere else if he is not telling the whole truth) is a cover for something more ― an illicit affair with a gypsy woman. The suggestion made is that he had been visiting this woman for some time and Heathcliff is the result of their liaison.

This explains why he would return with a strange child and why he ended up favouring him over his "real" son, Hindley. There is no clear indication one way or the other in the book and I would suspect that Emily would have dropped in some hints if she had really intended Heathcliff to be Mr Earnshaw's child. In the end, the evidence is circumstantial and there is no way of deciding the matter. I personally am inclined to believe that Mr Earnshaw was telling the truth and he had simply come across Heathcliff alone and starving in the streets. And there is one little piece of evidence that tends to support this. When Heathcliff arrives, Nelly explains that "it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand." Now Heathcliff is about seven at this time so we must assume the liaison had been going on for at least eight years. Presumably his mother speaks English since it is hard to imagine such a long relationship between two people who could not communicate and yet Heathcliff has learned nothing of that language in his childhood.

It seems much more reasonable to accept that he (and maybe his mother) had, for example, grown up abroad and arrived at Liverpool by ship. With no knowledge of English, we can understand how he could have been found destitute by Mr Earnshaw. Maybe the man rescued him from some attack and felt obliged to look after him afterwards (or indeed the other way around). Whatever it was, it turned out to be a misguided and portentous act. Wuthering Heights Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 8 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Cathy, Cathy, come in, Cathy come back to me. from United Kingdom 17 November 2011 Wuthering Heights is directed by William Wyler and adapted to screenplay by Charles MacArthur & Ben Hecht from the novel of the same name written by Emily Bronte. It stars Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Flora Robson. Music is scored by Alfred Newman and cinematography is by Gregg Toland. OK, so it's only a part of Bronte's classic novel, and yes some liberties have been taken, but Wuthering Heights is still a wonderfully involving picture.

Expertly played by the actors and directed with adroitness, it's a haunting tale of tragedy, love and passions never to be sated. Moodily photographed by Toland, who won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in the process, tale unfolds in flashback style that's aided by retrospect narration from Robson's wily house keeper Ellen Dean. Characters are perfectly formed as children, expanded upon into adulthood; with Olivier and Oberon coming into their own on the acting front, then the story reaches its denouement to leave the viewer flushed with emotion. All given dramatic impetus by Alfred Newman's sweeping score. 1939 was a stellar year for classic cinema, Wuthering Heights is deservedly a part of that upper echelon number. Brilliant. 9/10 Was the above review useful to you? 11 out of 15 people found the following review useful: Heathcliff And Kathy from Buffalo, New York 12 June 2007 Before I wrote this review I talked to someone else who also had done a review of this film here. Young Heathcliff is brought to the Yorkshire moors by Cecil Kellaway who was the father of Merle Oberon and Hugh Williams.

He seemed to be dropped into the Earnshaw family without any rhyme or reason. Kellaway finds the scruffy kid on the streets of Liverpool and brings him back to the family estate in Yorkshire. I asked if in fact Emily Bronte wrote more of this than what we saw. The answer was no. That in itself was curious because the version we see here was quite condensed from the original story. Still enough of Wuthering Heights survives on the screen to tell Emily Bronte's tale of lost love that cannot be because of class distinction. Merle Oberon is a beautiful and fetching Kathy who grows up with scruffy young Heathcliff and she becomes his soul-mate. Yet class being what it was and to some extent still is, she can't and/or won't marry him. He's just the stable-boy, and her brother is jealous of him and his presence. One piece of snobbery becomes too much and Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff leaves as he promised for good to make fame and fortune. That was a common theme in English literature, used by Dickens among others as well as Emily Bronte here. It was an indirect attack on the class system of Europe, let alone the United Kingdom.

The opportunities are in the new world and the colonies. Olivier comes back, but the love and tender feelings he did possess for Oberon are replaced by a brooding vengeance seeking man. He successfully humbles the people that snubbed him, but at a terrible cost to his psyche. Laurence Oliver came back to America after a previous visit to Hollywood where he didn't set the world on fire. His trip was almost an afterthought, his wife Vivien Leigh was to be Scarlett O'Hara, so he signed to do Wuthering Heights at the same time under Sam Goldwyn with William Wyler directing. Though he may have been inpatient with William Wyler's deliberate style of movie-making, he credited Wyler with being the first director who really taught him the difference between acting for the stage and for the screen. Olivier got the first of his Oscar nominations for Best Actor and he was up for that award with Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind, James Stewart for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Mickey Rooney for Babes in Arms. They all went down to Robert Donat in Goodbye Mr. Chips. Wuthering Heights took one Oscar home, best black and white cinematography for Gregg Toland.

Geraldine Fitzgerald got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the woman on the neighboring estate who develops a Statue of Liberty size torch for Olivier who can't see her for beans, but marries her anyway in some twisted act of revenge against her brother, played by David Niven, who married Oberon. Oscar nominations went to the film for Best Picture and to William Wyler for Best Director and several other technical nominations went to the film as well. David Niven liked working with Olivier, Oberon and the rest, but he hated his part of Edgar Linton. He felt it had no depth to him, but it was a typical David Niven part, full of surface charm and little else. Over 60 years later Wuthering Heights is still a film for lovers of all ages. We all hope in the next world that Olivier and Oberon have a better life and start on an equal plane. Was the above review useful to you? 12 out of 18 people found the following review useful: Wuthering Heights from Marietta, OH 4 June 1999 First rate cast delivers the exciting Victorian novel by Emily Bronte in true style and grace.

Olivier masterfully plays the strange Heathcliff and Oberon is luminous as Cathy. The film won the Oscar for its brilliant cinematoraphy, thanks to the touch of Gregg Toland. This great love story never falters, especially under the direction of William Wyler and with a supporting cast that features Niven, Fitzgerald and Donald Crisp. Was the above review useful to you? 5 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Picture perfect adaption of one of the great love stories of all time. 10 April 2014 *** This review may contain spoilers *** While a lot has been removed from the original Emily Bronte book, what has been transfered into the lavishly beautiful original film version has made it a classic that holds up like very few other films do. Released in the most classic film year ever, this shines above every other film in my book, even more outstanding than the two most remembered films of 1939: "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz". Merle Oberon is the "wild, sweet Cathy", a pampered rich girl from the Moors who is loved by many but loves only one.

Laurence Olivier is her childhood companion, Heathcliff, a gypsy boy taken in by her late father then tossed to the stables by her cruel older brother. As the years go by, Cathy and Heathcliff's affection turns into love, one that no boundaries can cross. Even when he goes away to America to make his fortune, he's not far from her thoughts. She marries a locally prominent man (Edgar Linton, played with gentility by David Niven) and out of spite, the returning Heathcliff marries Edgar's love-starved sister, Isabelle (Geraldine Fitzgerald in a truly tender performance that is downright tragic). Sick with jealousy and hatred towards what he has done simply to hurt her, Cathy regresses from life, hanging on by a balance. Everything about this film is truly outstanding, from the breathtaking photography and glorious musical score to the art direction, editing and yes, even the screenplay which took simply the choice bits of elements from the original book. William Wyler directs with panache, and every performance is filled with subtleties that can't be denied after repeat viewings.

Merle Oberon, sadly overlooked for an Oscar Nomination, gives the greatest performance of her career, showing that beyond being an exotic beauty, she was also highly underrated. Every essence of Cathy is explored, and even in her most spoiled and selfish moments, you can't help but love her. Olivier is perfectly brooding, the aches within him so deep over a love he knows he can't have on earth taking over his own tortured soul. The supporting players are all outstanding, and special honors must go to the wise and winning performance of Flora Robson as Wuthering Heights' long-time housekeeper who seems to die herself as the climax approaches and tragedy has erupted. Hence her return to her original home which has decayed while the Lintons remained bright and elegant. Donald Crisp is wise and compassionate, yet stern, as the local doctor; Hugh Williams straight out of a Dickens novel as the cruel brother who decays along with Wuthering Heights; Leo G. Carroll as the loyal butler; and Cecil Humphreys as the kind man who took the waif Heathcliff in originally.

So purists can get off their high horse and simply accept what the writers chose to include for a lengthy film which never seems to be as long as it is. If the classic novels of all time were filmed exactly as written, they would have to be at least 3 hours long, which is why BBC and PBS (and the occasional American networks) eventually did many of them as Mini-Series. Was the above review useful to you? 5 out of 6 people found the following review useful: The definitive version of this story from United States 10 May 2013 Dark, beautiful version of Emily Bronte's master work. Unquestionably Merle Oberon's selfish, conflicted Cathy is her best work and she's matched every step of the way by Olivier, perhaps at the peak of his attractiveness, who also gives one of his best performances as the tormented Heathcliff. All the actors acquit themselves with distinction but what makes this stand out is both the assured touch of Wyler and the stellar photography which is so effective it almost becomes a character in the piece. A story of doomed love and revenge it can hardly be described a happy film but it is an emotionally involving one.

Every few years there is a new version trying to improve on this, they can't. Catch it if you can. Was the above review useful to you? 3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: A beautifully made movie about ugly people from United States 11 January 2015 This is a beautifully filmed movie acted beautifully by two very beautiful leads, Merle Oberon and Lawrence Olivier, and some very fine supporting actors, in particular Flora Robson as Ellen. (Robson would go on the next year to give my favorite interpretation of Elizabeth I in *The Sea Hawk". She was one great actress.) But none of this beauty disguises the fact that it is the story of two very selfish and at times even hateful young people, Cathy and Heathcliff. No matter how beautiful the cinematography - and it is often very beautiful - how romantic the music (by Alfred Newman), and how moving the often poetic dialogue, especially over Cathy's deathbed, it was impossible, at least for me, to forget that important fact. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It's really well made. But I could only wish the worst for Cathy and her Heathcliff.

May they fall over that rock at the end and suffer all the torments they had inflicted on those around them. Was the above review useful to you? 4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Shoot that poison arrow in my heart from Derby, UK 17 May 2014 I saw this film many years before I read the book, I know which I prefer - OK, maybe with rose-tinted spectacles on. The book by Emily Bronte is an undeniable classic as is this film version but imho this is a much better use of one hundred and five minutes of life. And though they keep trying, this will remain the best condensation of the story, Wuthering Lites c/o the original Fantasy Factory. Waif brought into well off Yorkshire home, grows up to fall in violent love with the masters daughter and violent hate with the son, and eventually owns the estate but not the woman. Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon are perfect as the manic birds of a feather Heathcliff and Cathy with David Niven as the elegant sidelined husband.

Everyone is portrayed as faulty or unlikeable in some way, romance is seen as hopeless childishness leading at best to passionate petulance, at worst to death; love is as strange as people. It's relentlessly beautiful stuff, gloriously photographed by Gregg Toland with a glowing atmosphere and a most assured production than has not been possible to achieve again. The spirit of nonsensical romance has been lost in this more cynical age. Favourite bits: Miles Mander's melodramatics at the beginning resulting in Flora Robson's picture-long flashback; the windswept pair on the rocks; the pair gatecrashing the dance; Oberon's unravelling to Niven and the tear-jerking finale. Director William Wyler had a long and illustrious career, but to my mind he never bettered this effort. Watch it and weep; not only at the film's content but for a cinematic era long dead and never coming back. Was the above review useful to you? 4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: This adaptation has something the rest don't...

from Mesa, AZ 4 July 2011 I still think this is the best adaptation of Bronte's novel out of the gozillion remakes out there. This one has so much intensity and heart. The performances are just incredible. The music is incredible. The cinematography is absolutely magical! And of course, the direction is first rate. I won't recap the story- since many here have already done that- but I will tell you that this version is heads & shoulders above the rest. Movies do imitate life, and in parallel to that imitation, this movie is filled with moments that are absolutely unforgettable. This is due to the actors- everyone in this movie is first rate. All the supporting roles (Geraldine Fitzgerald, Donald Crisp, Leo Carroll, Flora Robson, David Niven) are all seamlessly committed to their roles in a way that makes watching them vicariously enjoyable. Even the children that play the leads in their youth are incredibly good! The leads, played by Oberon & Olivier are so well matched, you'd believe they were really in love. They have a chemistry and an intensity that makes you believe in them.

After all, this story is one which does require some suspension of disbelief, but the artistry of Oberon & Olivier make it easy and quite frankly, unnoticeable. One of my favorite things that no remake can compete with is the score by Alfred Newman. His light and joyful children's theme and the brooding themes are so organic and seem come from the action in the film. But probably the most memorable is "Cathy's theme." It defines the love of Cathy in the movie in musical terms. It is, as they say, the language of the soul in this movie. The beautiful cinematography by Gregg Toland is absolutely RADIANT. Despite a dark story full of longing, angst and pain, his radiant cinematography illuminates the faces of the actors in a way that is almost supernatural. In fact, the scene where Cathy turns to Ellen and says, "Ellen, I AM Heathcliff!" with the lightening in the background actually does seem almost supernatural! In the scene with the ball, the skin of the actors seems to reflect light in a way that is bewitching and fascinating. The jewels the ladies where look more like they're under a jeweler's light than just things hanging off the necks of actresses.

Somehow his cinematography has a clean crispness that I've seen in very few black & white movies. I have to say, his work in this movie is another reason I prefer this to any version in color. William Wyler's direction is spot-on as well. He tells the story as much with the choices of camera angles as the screenwriter. Each frame is composed in such an artistic way- yet not in a way that you notice. I have noticed due to repeated viewings, but the fact is, this movie comes off as almost voyeuristic. We watch almost as if we were eavesdropping on the lives of these people. Like any great movie, it pulls you in & holds you. While I realize (having read the book myself) that this isn't the most complete adaptation, it is the one that moves me the most. That's part of why we go to the movies- to feel - and as someone once said in a movie, "to know we're not alone." 5 out of 4 stars!!!!!!! :) Was the above review useful to you? 4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: A romantic 1930's ghost story!

from Groningen, The Netherlands 29 September 2008 This movie was quite different from what I was expecting. It's quite an unique combination of love, drama and a ghost story. It may sound real odd and ridicules but it's a movie that works out surprisingly well and is truly powerful and effective. Director William Wyler was of course really at ease within this genre and he directed some powerful drama's in mostly the '30's, like this movie. He always knew to create some 'real' emotions with 'real' characters, without ever really going over-the-top with it, unlike often was the case with the genre movies from the same time period. Laurence Olivier was a pretty unique and special actor. He is one of the very few actors who actually was successful throughout his entire career. Seriously, which other actor can say that he starred in some classic successful movies in the '30's, '40's, 50's, '60's and '70's? He really is one of my favorite actors of all time. He was so successful throughout his entire career because he was willing to adapt his acting style as movie-making and acting changed throughout the years.

Most of the other actors from the same time period simply didn't even bother to try and went in to early retirement. If you compare the roles he played in the '30's to his roles from the '70's you'll notice a quite big difference in style and approach. He was also an actor who simply accepted his age and didn't pretended to be younger than he was as years went by and big main roles became scares for an actor of his age. Olivier also received his first ever Oscar nomination for his role in this. 9 nominations would later follow (including some directing nominations) and he also received an acting award in 1949 for his role in his directed "Hamlet" movie, an honorary Oscar in 1979 and also already in 1947, for his outstanding achievement as actor, producer and director in bringing 'Henry V' to the screen. He's a true movie legend, with an impressive and successful career that span over many decades. The rest of the movie its cast is also real solid, with also some great supporting actors in it, such as David Niven (without his small mustache!), Donald Crisp and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

It's too bad that Merle Oberon never really ever broke through, for she was a real fine actress, playing opposite Laurence Olivier in this movie. The movie has some great dialog. Yes, it's old fashioned and yes some lines obviously come straight out of the novel by Emily Brontë but it suits the movie so well. It makes this a real typical early British costume drama, produced and shot in America and with also for some part American actors in it. But it needs to be said that the movie doesn't always progresses logically. The pace and time-line doesn't always feel right and the movie its story really feels like it got based on several different chapters of a book being thrown together into one movie, which of course also was the case. Not all of the sequences within the movie really connect well together. Otherwise the story of this movie is really solid. It's a great romantic love-story that of course however features more drama than any romance. It's a tough love-story of a 'forbidden' love and persons trying to make life as tough and painful as possible for each other. The movie is filled with some fine solid characters as well as some real powerful and memorable sequences.

Funny thing about this movie is that it completely looks as if was shot in the United-Kingdom however in fact it got completely shot in America. The movie has a real great look and atmosphere over it, of course also with some fine looking sets and costumes as you would expect from a period piece such as this movie. A movie like only could be made in the 1930's! 9/10 from Virginia Beach 3 November 2005 Great literature enriches the soul. The Brontes created great literature because they invented so much of what it means. They invented ways of observing the soul that hadn't already been mined by Shakespeare. If you want a great film that celebrates, explores, exploits Bronte, you can't escape the reality that you'd have to stretch film the same way Charlotte stretched perspective. Didn't happen here. Olivier seemed good enough at what he knew (stage acting) but that isn't bendable to great experiences in film. Never was. But you might want to watch this for another reason. The dialog and acting are ordinarily conceived. But the cinematography is extraordinary, from the very special Greg Toland. Greg DID stretch cinema in the way we mentioned. His greys have depth.

When he photographs the heath, we feel the atmosphere as if the mist had emotion. The interiors of the house are magnificent in design. And Toland's lighting and framing are so haunting. This film is why Orson Welles wanted him on "Citizen Kane." You need to watch it to see where much of the disembodied ghost-observer comes from. With Toland, Cathy defines what we see and how. But the actual story? Go read it instead. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements. Was the above review useful to you? Page 2 of 12:

Question: In the novel 'Wuthering Heights', in which city is the waif Heathcliff found and adopted by Mr Earnshaw?
Answer: Liverpool